Samuel Mason | |
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 No known portrait of Samuel Mason exists from life. A likeness from his physical description mentioned in historical records.[1] | |
| Born | Samuel Ross Mason (1739-11-08)November 8, 1739 |
| Died | 1803 (aged 63–64) |
| Cause of death | Murder bygunshot wound ortomahawk |
| Other names | Sam Mason, Mason, Samuel Meason, Meason, Captain Mason, Ensign Mason,Squire Mason, Mason of the Woods, Wilson, Bully Wilson |
| Occupation(s) | Horse thief, soldier, state militia officer, frontiersman, associate judge, tavern keeper, burglar, bandit, justice of the peace, criminal gang leader, river pirate |
| Employer(s) | Virginia state government, self-employed |
| Spouse | Rosanna or Rosannah Dorsey |
| Children | 6[2] |
| Relatives | George Mason (grandfather) |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | |
| Branch | Virginia State Forces |
| Years of service | 1777–1779 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Unit | Ohio County Militia |
| Commands | Captain Samuel Mason's Company |
| Battles / wars | |
| Signature | |
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Samuel Ross Mason[a] (November 8, 1739 – 1803), was anAmerican Revolutionary War veteran,Virginiamilitiacaptain,justice of the peace,frontier leader, and later, a figure associated withriver piracy andhighway robbery. He is best known as the leader of theMason Gang, a notorious group active along the lowerOhio River andMississippi Rivers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Mason is most famously linked to theCave-in-Rock area, a notorious river pirate stronghold along the Ohio River.
Born in Virginia, Mason served in the Revolutionary War, notably on thewestern frontier. Following the war, he became involved in the region's lawlessness, eventually establishing himself as a prominent figure in outlaw circles. His gang was involved in various illegal activities, including piracy and robbery, and was associated with notorious sites such asRed Banks,Cave-in-Rock,Stack Island, and theNatchez Trace.
Mason's motivations have been the subject of much speculation, since personal anecdotes and firsthand accounts of his life are scarce to nonexistent. While his criminal activities are well-documented, it has been suggested that his actions may have been driven by broader political and economic motivations. In particular, his later resistance to federal authority, particularly following theWhiskey Rebellion of 1791–1794, has led some to interpret his post-war activities as part of a broader anti-government sentiment. This interpretation presents Mason as not merely a criminal, but potentially a figure of resistance to what he perceived as an overreaching government, particularly in the post-Revolutionary War era. However, his activities are also seen by others primarily as self-serving criminal ventures, and his role in the outlaw world of the frontier continues to shape his legacy.
Samuel Mason was born on November 8, 1739, inNorfolk,Colony of Virginia, the son of Thomas Mason and Mary Newton. His paternal grandfather wasGeorge Mason, a second-generation member of theHouse of Burgesses (great-grandfatherLemuel also served as a member of the House of Burgesses). Samuel Mason was raised in what is nowCharles Town, West Virginia, which was part of Virginia prior to the Civil War.
According toLyman Draper, in the 1750s Mason got his earliest start in crime as a teenager by stealing the horses ofColonel John L. Hite, inFrederick County, Virginia, being wounded and caught by his pursuers.[3] He moved from Charles Town to what is nowOhio County, West Virginia, also at that time a part of Virginia, in 1773.
During theAmerican Revolution, Samuel Mason was a captain of the Ohio County Militia in theVirginia State Forces. According to Ohio County court minutes dated January 7, 1777, Mason was recommended toPatrick Henry, theGovernor of Virginia, to serve as captain of the militia.[4] On January 28, Mason was present and cited as a captain from Ohio County at a "council of war" held at Catfish Camp,[5] located at or near present-dayWashington, Pennsylvania.[6]
On June 8, 1777, Mason wrote a letter fromFort Henry, Virginia (present-dayWheeling, West Virginia) toBrigadier GeneralEdward Hand atFort Pitt (present-dayPittsburgh, Pennsylvania). The letter he wrote was signed Samuel Meason.[6] On September 1, 1777, Captain Mason was wounded but survived an ambush byNative Americans near Fort Henry. Most of the men in his militia company perished during the attack.[7]
From August 11 to September 14, 1779, Mason, while at Fort Henry, accompanied ColonelDaniel Brodhead and his8th Pennsylvania Regiment of theContinental Army, combined with militia troops fromFort Pitt, to destroy ten tribal villages of the pro-BritishSeneca tribe in northeasternPennsylvania during theSullivan Expedition, in retaliation for the devastatingIroquois attacks in theCobleskill,Wyoming Valley, andCherry Valleymassacres of 1778.[8][9][10]
According tocourt-martial records in Ohio County, Virginia, Mason was still on duty as an officer in the Ohio County Militia at Fort Henry until 1781. He appeared at the courts-martial and was present as a witness for military proceedings against other soldiers. Mason appeared twice at the Ohio County courthouse in Wheeling on November 7, 1780, and May 7, 1781.[11]
In his bookThe Outlaws of Cave-In-Rock, Otto A. Rothert stated that Samuel Mason moved again, in 1779, to a part of Virginia east of Wheeling that is now in present-dayWashington County, Pennsylvania, where he was electedjustice of the peace and later selected as an associate judge, leaving for an area that was then a part of Virginia and now in present-dayKentucky in 1784. Mason's surname was spelled interchangeably as "Meason" in many of the early frontier records. This is explained in two family histories of the Mason/Meason family,Pioneer Period and Pioneer People of Fairfield County, Ohio by C. M. L. Wiseman, dated 1901, andTorrence and Allied Families by Robert M. Torrence, dated 1938.
During this period, the frontier was a place of mounting social and political tension, as exemplified by events like theWhiskey Rebellion, which may have influenced Mason through the widespread discontent with federal taxes and central authority. While his involvement in the rebellion itself is not definitively documented, the timeline of the rebellion, coupled with Mason's known proximity, prior military service, and later activities, suggests he may have shared in the frustrations that led to the unrest, contributing to his eventual shift towards more radical actions.
In the early 1790s, Mason moved his family to the Red Banks on theOhio River, near present-dayHenderson, Kentucky, where he began his full-time criminal activities. He later settled downriver onDiamond Island and engaged inriver piracy. By 1797, Mason moved the base of his operations still further downriver toCave-in-Rock on the northern bank of the Ohio River in what was then the unorganizedNorthwest Territory. The Mason Gang of river pirates openly based themselves at this huge, sheltered riverside cave and prominent landmark.
Mason had a brief association with the first known serial killers in America,Micajah and Wiley Harpe, as well asPeter Alston, and possiblyJohn Duff, thecounterfeiter. Mason and his gang stayed at Cave-in-Rock until the summer of 1799, when they were expelled by the "Exterminators", a group ofregulators under the leadership of Captain Young ofMercer County, Kentucky.[12]
Samuel Mason then moved his operations down theMississippi River and settled his family in the territory ofSpanish Louisiana (in present-dayMissouri) and became a highwayman along theNatchez Trace in theMississippi Territory (in present-dayMississippi). It was on the Natchez Trace that Mason received his most infamous nickname. He would leave a message after each crime (often in the blood of his murdered victims) proudly stating, "Done by Mason of the Woods". In April 1802, Mississippi Territorial GovernorWilliam C. C. Claiborne was informed that Mason and Wiley Harpe had attempted to board the boat of a Colonel Joshua Baker between Yazoo (nowYazoo City, Mississippi) and Walnut Hills (nowVicksburg, Mississippi).[13]
A man named Swaney, who saw Samuel Mason often, described his appearance: "He weighed about two hundred pounds, and was a fine looking man. He was rather modest and unassuming, and had nothing of the raw-head-and-bloody-bones appearance which his character would indicate".[1] Another man, Henry Howe, described Mason as: "...a man of gigantic stature and of more than ordinary talents".[1] A William Darby also described him as follows: "Mason at any time of his life or in any situation, had something extremely ferocious in his look, which arose particularly from a tooth which projected forwards, and could only be covered with his lip by effort".[1]
According toSpanish colonial court records, Spanish government officials arrested Samuel Mason and his men early in 1803 at the Little Prairie settlement, nowCaruthersville in southeastern Missouri. Mason and his gang, including his family members, were taken to the Spanish colonial government inNew Madrid, Spanish Upper Louisiana Territory, where a three-day hearing was held to determine whether Mason was truly involved in river piracy, of which he had been formally accused.
Although he claimed he was simply a farmer who had been maligned by his enemies, the peculiar presence of $7,000 in currency and twenty humanscalps found in his baggage was the damning evidence that convinced the Spanish he was indeed a river pirate. Mason and his family were taken under armed guard toNew Orleans, the capital ofSpanish Lower Louisiana Territory, where the Spanish colonial governor ordered them handed over to the American authorities in theMississippi Territory, as all crimes they had been convicted of appeared to have taken place in American territory or against American river boats.
While being transported up the Mississippi River, Samuel Mason and gang members John Sutton or Setton, one of the many aliases used byWiley Harpe, and James May, alias ofPeter Alston, overpowered their guards and escaped, with Mason being shot in the head during the escape. One of the 1803 accounts {Rothert. p. 247} claimed Captain Robert McCoy, the commandant of New Madrid, was killed by Mason during their escape. McCoy actually died in 1840, and was neither crippled nor killed by Mason.[14]
American territorial governorWilliam C. C. Claiborne immediately issued a reward for their recapture, prompting Wiley Harpe and Peter Alston to bring Mason's head, in an attempt to claim the reward money. Whether they killed Mason or whether he died from his wound suffered in the escape attempt has never been established. "Setton" and "May" were recognized and identified as wanted criminals Wiley Harpe andPeter Alston. They were arrested, tried inU.S. federal court, found guilty of piracy, and hanged inOld Greenville,Jefferson County,Mississippi Territory in early 1804.[15]
From the 1790s-1833,James Ford led a double life while living in Ford's Ferry, Kentucky, as thejustice of the peace and the gang leader of a group ofhighwaymen andriver pirates on theOhio River. From 1863 to 1864,Henry Plummer was the elected sheriff of the gold rush town,Bannack, Montana, in theIdaho Territory. He was later accused of being the leader of an outlaw gang, theInnocents, who stole gold shipments from Bannick, and was hanged by Bannickvigilantes.
In the 1956Walt Disney television seriesDavy Crockett and the River Pirates, aHollywoodized version of Samuel Mason is portrayed by American actorMort Mills, who appears alongside the Harpe brothers.
In the 1962John Ford Western epic filmHow the West Was Won, a Samuel Mason-like frontier outlaw leader of a gang ofriver pirates is portrayed byWalter Brennan, as the fictional character of Colonel Jeb Hawkins, which alludes to the historical Cave-In-Rock.
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